An itchy beard is not too pleasant.

The experience of having a really stylish beard can easily be ruined with an itch that you can’t seem to shake off.

Spending hours on end growing, grooming, and styling a beard can all go down in a sinkhole if the beard style turns out to be itchy for you.

But all is not lost, as there are a lot of proven methods that can help you get rid of beard itchiness that you have been struggling with.

Actually, there are many ways and it just depends on which one of them will be beneficial for you.

The article that you are reading right now holds the key to getting rid of beard itchiness.

We included all the helpful methods that we could find and analyzed all of them.

We are more than sure that one of the mentioned methods will turn out to be the right one for you and your itchy beard.

One of the most popular reasons why guys give up on growing that luxurious beard is because they simply cannot stand the constant itching.

The first weeks that you are trying to grow a healthy beard comes with the itchiness that can literally become so severe that you swear you will never grow that beard again.

Even though the itching is temporary, most men can not power through that stage and get to the other side where a full long beard awaits them.

If you have tried and failed to grow a perfect beard, here are some simple techniques to help you learn how to stop beard itches.

Cleaning Your Beard

During the first few weeks of trying to grow a beard, you are going to experience the most discomfort as far as itching because those new sharp hairs simply irritate the facial skin surface.

Each day, thousands of dead skin cells are being shed from the face, but your new beard catches those cells and then simply holds them close to the surface of your face.

By not letting dead skin fall away, it causes skin irritation and itching to occur. Regular washing will keep your beard clean, but there are certain rules that need to be followed if you want to keep your facial hair healthy.

Don’t use regular hair shampoo on your beard, instead, you should try a specialized beard shampoo that will help with the flaking of the skin.

The common reason why you should not use a regular shampoo on your beard is that your head and face skin are different, just as your head and facial hairs.

For starters, face skin is way more sensitive than the skin on your scalp. If used on your beard, regular shampoo would dry the skin under your beard.

Not only that, but everyday shampoos and soap bars will also strip your skin of its natural oils, causing skin and hair damage.

These products will also clog your pores and make beard itch worse than ever before. Fortunately, that’s why specialized shampoos for beards are invented.

Beard shampoos are great for dealing with beard itchiness and flaking. They are made with powerful ingredients that remove all dead skin cells stuck in your beard.

At the same time, beard shampoos hydrate the skin and make a beard clean.

Choosing high-quality beard shampoo can be challenging, especially because not all beard shampoos are good for your facial hair.

To ensure a clean beard, use only the best beard wash, always read the label on beard shampoos you buy or make your own beard shampoo at home.

Beard shampoo is great when used properly, which means without overdoing it. If you use it too frequently, it will mess with the natural oils your skin produces leading to dryness and eventually damaged hair follicles.

Ideally, you should wash your facial hair 2-3 times per week.

If your beard is more exposed to dust and dirt, you can wash it more often, but without beard shampoos. Washing your beard just with water will be enough in those situations.

Washing with a mild beard soap might also be a good alternative in this case. It will clean and moisturize your beard without stripping it from its natural oils.

Before you start washing your beard, brush it with a boar bristles beard brush to exfoliate the dead skin cells to the surface of your beard.

Once you do this, do the following simple steps to shampoo your beard.

How To Shampoo Your Beard Properly

Step 1

The first step means to use some warm water to moisten the beard. Warm water will open up your pores but make sure that the temperature of the water is not to hot or it will dry skin and suppress the growth of your beard.

Step 2

Massage beard shampoo into the beard until lathered. Using the tips of your fingers, go deeply into the beard and skin to stimulate all follicles.

Step 3

Rinse the shampoo thoroughly in all directions to remove all the remains.

Step 4

Towel dry the beard after washing it to ensure that there is no water left behind because it can cause irritation.

Avoid being too harsh and using force when doing this to prevent irritation and continuous itching.

If you can’t dry skin and the beard completely with a towel, use the hair dryer turned on low to finish the job.

Repairing Your Beard Itchy Beard

Chances are that if you already have an established beard and it still itches, it may be because it is damaged from heat styling or harsh soaps causing the discomfort.

When your beard hair follicles are damaged, it will then spread from the tip to the root. This damage will slow down the growth and cause the hair to irritate the follicle when it emerges.

This healing process will repair the beard hair and help you learn how to stop beard itch.

Conditioning Your Beard

Sometimes not even the best beard shampoo is enough and you may need additional help in grooming your beard.

Similar to the hair on your head, your beard needs to be conditioned if you want that downy and soft feel.

The hair conditioners for your scalp contain harsh chemicals that can easily irritate the sensitive skin on your face. Beard’s conditioner is of great help when this happens.

You should always use it right after washing the facial hair. Defending against beard itch is always more efficient when there is a conditioner involved after every beard wash.

The best beard conditioners contain anti-tangling agents that coat the hairs and ensure they become resistant to knotting.

The function of a beard conditioner is similar to the function of the head hair conditioner. The only difference is in the ingredients.

When deciding on beard conditioners, don’t be fooled by a brand name. There are many of them, but in this case, the ingredients play the most significant role.

Look for conditioners whose primary ingredients are argan and jojoba oil. Argan oil is great for making facial hair thicker and softer.

Jojoba oil is known for its strengthening and thickening powers and it is also successful in reducing beard tangles.

While at it, beard conditioner benefits don’t stop here. This beard care product is known to lock the moisture, which helps keep your beard hydrated.

It also makes your beard softer and more manageable. Besides that, it reduces split ends, which are known as contributors to beard itch.

When you use a beard conditioner properly and split ends start to disappear, the irritation and beard itchiness will also be significantly reduced.

No matter the beard style, every bearded man sees the benefits soon after using a beard conditioner for the first time.

However, men with coarser, wirier and thicker beard need conditioning more than the others. A regular use of a beard conditioner makes tangled beards smoother and softer.

The right way to of applying beard conditioner is by taking a small amount and rubbing it between your hands. This is necessary because the heat from the hands activates the conditioner.

After the activation, conditioner should be evenly spread throughout the beard. Beard conditioner is not meant to be used on your face skin as it will make it look oily and greasy.

If your beard is just starting, then consider a beard stubble softening product to help you learn how to stop beard itch while the hair is still growing.

The newly growing hairs will not scrape the follicles and irritate your skin.

Keeping Your Beard Moisturized

Beard conditioner’s job is to nourish a beard, while beard moisturizers are responsible for the hydration of skin underneath the beard which is often dry and prone to dandruff.

If not properly moisturized, once your skin gets over dry, your body will start producing extra oil to protect it. Breakouts and beard itching occur at this point.

As stated so many times before, in the first stages of beard growth, beard itch is something completely normal. It usually lasts a week or two, but for some men, it can last a bit more.

The good news is that you don’t have to clench your teeth and wait for the itching phase to pass.

Good beard oil can reduce or completely eliminate beard itch even in the beginning.

Less is more when it comes to beard oil, so a few drops will be enough. After just a couple of days, beard oil will eliminate beard itchiness and soften your facial hair.

Hydrate your beard on a daily basis with some premium beard oil. Not only will this keep your beard hydrated, it will also add a great manly smell.

Beard balm is a good alternative to stopping or at least reducing beard itch. The only difference is in the ingredients.

Beard balms are made with natural beard butter and beeswax, which are not found in beard oil.

However, carrier oils are part of both of these products, and this ingredient does all the work in eliminating beard itch.

Brushing Your Beard

Grooming and combing your beard can also help with ingrown hairs that irritate the skin.

In the fight against beard itch, a tool that is very useful for several reasons is a beard brush with boar bristles.

Firstly, running a beard brush through your facial hair scratches the skin underneath the beard. This relieves of beard itch almost instantly.

Quality beard brushes scrub off and bring into the surface dead skin cells allowing you to wash them off easily.

Finally, boar beard brush is excellent in training hairs to grow in the desired direction.

By regularly brushing your beard, you significantly reduce the chances of experiencing beard itch and having ingrown hairs, beard knots, and tangles.

It is said numerous times that boar bristle brushes are the best for your beard. Boar bristles are cut at different lengths, and they capture all beard hairs.

Furthermore, they spread the sebum across the entire hair strand, and repair dry and damaged hairs. Besides boar bristles, beard brush can have plastic or vinyl bristles.

Be careful when purchasing a beard brush, as plastic and vinyl bristles will damage your beard and cause snags.

They are cheaper than boar bristle brushes, though, but have in mind that quality brush will last much longer, so it justifies its price.

Always brush and comb your beard before and after washing it. Brushing hair before the wash will remove any dirt, debris or grim.

When doing this after the shower, dry skin with a towel, apply beard oil first, and only then run a beard brush through it. Doing so will make your beard softer and tangle-free.

The right way to brush a beard is always in the direction where the hairs grow.

In case you want to style your beard or just give it some minor touch up, a beard comb with smooth teeth will do the trick.

Trimming Your Beard

When growing a beard for the first time, avoid cutting it for about 12 weeks.

In that time, your beard will become thicker, and any patchy areas will fill in.

After that time, start trimming it to achieve the desired beard shape and keep your facial hair free from itching.

You have three essential tools at your disposal when trimming: beard trimmer, beard scissors, and a straight razor.

If used and maintained correctly, these tools will prevent beard itching at any beard growth stage.

Beard Trimmer

Get yourself a high-grade beard trimmer with adjustable settings. While trimming your beard, make sure to start with the biggest clip number and then reduce it when you feel confident enough.

A crucial thing to ensure that your beard trimmer does a good job of dealing with a beard itch is to maintain it properly.

Keep beard trimmer blades oiled and sharp to ensure that they slice the hairs accurately. That way you will avoid experiencing beard split ends that irritate the skin and cause beard itchiness.

Beard Scissors

This tool is great when you need to be precise and pay attention to details. For example, most men mustache grow faster than the hairs on their cheeks.

Beard scissors are useful here as you will be able to trim the mustache evenly without over trimming them.

Straight Razor

For a precise and closer cut, a straight razor is always the best choice. Straight razor won’t give you any razor bumps or ingrown hairs.

Other razors, especially overused, usually irritate the skin, give a razor burn and cause an excessive beard itch.

If you’re not using a straight razor, at least make sure to use a sharp razor to shape your beard. Make sure that it’s not used more than three times.

How to Stop Beard Itch by Using Home Remedies

A healthy lifestyle is the best natural home remedy against beard itching. You know what this means.

If you want a healthy, strong, and itchy-free beard, avoid stress, make sure you are drinking plenty of water, get enough rest and stop smoking. If you do all these bad stuff, expect to have an itchy beard.

Smoking cigarettes is bad on so many levels. It’s not good for your health, and it also makes your beard stink long after you extinguish a cigarette.

A crucial home remedy to master the skill of how to stop beard itch is proper nutrition. Admit it that you saw that one coming.

Your diet needs to be enriched with proper vitamins, minerals, and proteins. Start with the most known natural hair growth supplement – Biotin.

This supplement is good for your beard because it improves its growth and quality.

It can be found in fruits and vegetables, but if you are not a fan, there are many beard vitamins on the market that do the same job.

You also need vitamins A, B, C, and E. Each of them has unique benefits. They promote the sebum production and therefore help with moisturizing your skin and beard.

Also, they improve growth and prevent hair loss. Another thing you need to incorporate into your diet is foods rich in omega-3 fatty acids.

They are essential for normal and healthy hair growth, meaning that they prevent beard from becoming overly dry and itchy and we all know how itchy beard can be annoying.

Last resort

If you have tried just about everything to learn how to stop beard itch and you are still scratching every minute, consider using a product called T-Gel Stubborn Itch Control as the last resort to shaving off your beard.

This product is basically a coal tar and will help you get through the itching stage so your beard can continue to grow.

Continue to moisturize your face before bed and when you wake each morning to help alleviate the itching. The itching will not last forever.

With a combination of washing, moisturizing and repairing the beard, you should know how to stop beard itch and get back to enjoying your thick and manly beard!

Why Does My Beard Itch

There is no fight against beard itchiness unless you find out what causes this annoying condition in the first place. Several factors are known to be the causes of beard itch.

Among them, there are two prime reasons why itchy beard occurs. The factor that decides this is the stage of beard growth.

In other words, beard itch can happen when you start growing a beard, but also when your facial hair is fully grown.

When you start growing a beard after shaving for a long time, you will experience beard itching. Believe it or not, this happens because you’ve been shaving your entire life.

Why Does Your Beard Itch After Shaving

To put it simply: A life of shaving has accustomed your skin to be without facial hair. Now that you’ve let those beard hairs grow freely, they became sharp and coarse.

Unshaven hairs have tapered edges, and this prevents friction against hair follicles. Shaven hairs are, as you already know, completely different.

Shaving for so long has made those tapered edges become a sharp edge. The problem is even bigger if you used to shave closer to the skin.

While growing, sharp hair edges curl back and constantly rub against your skin on the face causing beard itchiness. This does not happen only when you start growing your beard.

It is also something that occurs to men with shorter beards, like 5 o’clock shadow style and is precisely the reason why stubbles often feel so rough.

Keep in mind that shaving with an electric beard trimmer will cause your beard to be far itchier. Shaving with a straight razor also irritates your skin and makes your facial hair itch, but definitely less than beard trimmer.

Trimming your beard with a beard trimmer is easier, but once you do it, expect a very itchy beard.

Although it seems harder, you should trim and shape your beard with a straight razor whenever possible.

Beard itch will still appear after that, but with less intensity. Another good thing to keep in mind is that you shouldn’t start growing a beard right after shaving.

It’s not forbidden, but if you do it, your skin is more exposed to externally sharp hairs.

After some time, those facial hairs curl up and prod into your skin. You already know what then happens – itchiness.

To better prepare your face skin for a new beard after shaving, let the beard grow freely for a few days. After that, trim it with beard trimmer at a 90-degree angle. This will make the hairs grow less sharp.

Beard Itch and Full Grown Beard

Beard itch is a normal part of the beard growing process, and it passes after some time. Until it doesn’t.

Sometimes, although your beard is fully grown, the itchiness will remain. This happens because your facial hair is dry and wiry.

If not adequately moisturized and conditioned, your beard will also make the skin underneath dry.

Next thing you’ll notice is irritation, itchiness, rough and coarse facial hairs and beard dandruff.

When not treated correctly, beard itchiness can get even worse over time. Most men don’t pay enough attention to the way they dry their beards after showering.

Shower water is generally full of magnesium and calcium carbonates. The traces of these two elements stay in your beard if you don’t dry it the right way.

After that, they evaporate and draw moisture out of the skin. Increased dryness creates a new set of problems, leading eventually to beard hair more prone to breakage.

Beard that is not completely dry is a potential environment for different bacteria and microbes.

In case that a large number of microbes spawns inside your facial hairs, irritation and itching will follow.

Other Reasons for Beard Itching

As you can see, the reasons behind beard itching are numerous.

Some of the most common are: dry skin, dead skin cells, ingrown facial hairs, bad beard grooming habits, stress, poor diet, beard split ends and not having beard grooming routine.

Dry Skin and Itchy Beard

Let’s start with the most common issues that causes your beard itch – dryness. This is already stated above, but it’s important to explain a couple more things.

Your daily routine, grooming habits, lifestyle, environment, all these reasons can lead to dry and itchy skin and itchy beard.

Most men like to take a long and hot shower after returning from work or having a bad day.

Before you rush to do that, know that hot water will loosen up and wash away your skin’s natural oil.

Sebum is crucial in keeping your skin and facial hair moisturized, and showering with hot water strips your skin from this necessary and vital oil.

Once it loses sebum, your skin will become dry, irritated and you’ll have an itchy beard. Men who live in a colder climate are more likely to experience beard itch.

Cold weather removes all the moisture from the air, and this is extremely hard and challenging for your beard and skin.

In such a climate, your skin cannot retain the moisture because even the breeze can cause the moisture to evaporate from it.

That’s why men who live in countries known for cold climate deal with beard dandruff and dry skin more often than the others.

A common problem with dry skin leads to an additional issue. Dry beard and skin are attracting different kinds of impurities, such as food particles and dust.

All these things stick and settle in your beard until you decide to wash it.

Dead Skin Cells and Beard Itch

Each day, your face sheds hundreds and thousands of dead skin cells. When you didn’t have a beard, things were easy.

It was enough just to wash and scrub your face regularly. Now that you have started growing a beard or you have been bearded for a while, you know that a beard is always work in progress.

Regarding dead skin cells, it’s worthwhile mentioning that your beard will catch and retain those dead cells. You’re guessing right that this causes irritation and beard itching.

Not Having Beard Grooming Routine

Establishing and following a beard grooming routine is crucial for every serious bearded man. If that lacks, beard itchiness often follows.

Beard grooming routine means that you should wash your beard with specialized beard shampoo, towel dry it after washing, use high-quality beard care products, and finally comb and brush it.

By doing this, you are decreasing the chances of getting an itchy beard. Besides that, your facial hair must be combed and washed a couple of times a week.

Men who don’t have good beard grooming routine and don’t wash and comb their beards are risking beard itch due to dirt, food and liquid particles, and dust getting caught in their facial hair.

Bad Beard Grooming Products

Alongside with men who don’t use any beard care product because they don’t consider them manly or for some other reasons are men who use harsh and harmful beard grooming products.

Up until this point, you’ve learned that beard itch shall pass eventually. But why does your beard still itches even though you have a full beard?

The chances are that the answer to this question lays in bad, harsh beard grooming products that you are using.

In most cases, these grooming mistakes commit rookies. They tend to use bar soaps or the same shampoos they use on their head hair when washing their facial hair.

Bar soap is known for stripping your beard hairs and skin from sebum which causes itchiness, dryness and in the bottom line, irritation.

Maybe you want to save a few bucks, or you are still learning about proper beard care, but shampooing your beard with regular shampoo will have significant consequences to your beard.

Again, the standard shampoo will wash off the sebum from your skin face and beard, and before you become aware of it, you’ll have an itchy beard.

Beard oil and balm with artificial ingredients can also be placed into this group. Not all of them will make your beard grow faster, thicker, softer and cleaner.

Simply, there are bad and good quality beard balms and essential oils for your beard. If you choose the ones made with natural ingredients like Beardoholic Beard Balm, there are fewer chances that you will have beard problems.

When your facial hair gets damage because of the use of harsh beard grooming products, it is likely that you will experience beard split ends. This will slow the growth of your facial hair.

Also, beard split ends will irritate hair follicles and cause beard itching.

Poor Diet and Stress

It is never enough time repeated that the health of your beard depends on your overall health, and your health is highly dependable on the food you eat.

If you often eat fast, junk food, your beard will have to deal with the consequences. One of them is an itchy beard.

Stress is known to have a huge negative impact on your whole body. When you are under stress, your body releases hormone Cortisol.

This hormone breaks the collagen molecules in your skin. Without collagen, your skin loses elasticity, becomes dry and develops itchiness.

If you are not getting enough sleep, stress will cause a hormonal dissemblance in your body. Hormones, in the long run, affect the skin and boost beard itchiness.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

How Long Does Beard Itch Last?

Beard itch is temporary, and it lasts somewhere between 1 and 3 weeks. Meanwhile, if the itchiness becomes unbearable you can always use beard oil to reduce it.

After a few weeks, though, you will be more comfortable with your beard than you were before when you were shaving every day.

How to Stop Beard Itch while Growing a Beard?

Same as it is already said, by applying high-quality beard oil (or balm, if you prefer).
An additional thing you can do is to inspect your beard a couple of times per week to find any ingrown hairs.

Ingrown hairs are also known as the causes of beard itching so you should remove them with tweezers at the early stage.
That way you are killing two birds with one stone – ingrown facial hairs and excessive beard itching they cause.

Does itchy beard mean it’s growing?

In some stages when new hairs are growing, guys tend to experience some itchiness, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that everyone is going to experience the same. It sometimes happens when transitioning from a clean shave to a stubble phase.